Special Needs Transportation

Districts renew contracts with American Logistics Co.

SANTA ANA, Calif. — American Logistics Company (ALC) has renewed its supplemental agreement to provide transportation services for students with special needs at Seattle Public Schools during the 2010-11 school year.

Seattle Public Schools first chose to contract with ALC in the fall of 2009.

“Since we began working with ALC, one of the things that has impressed us most about the company is its ability to quickly earn the trust of our families,” said Tom Bishop, director of transportation for Seattle Public Schools. “ALC provides our students with special needs and their families the desired consistency that comes from seeing the same driver every day. Additionally, our families appreciate the in-home meetings that take place with the driver prior to service engagement. These go a long way in ensuring that each family is comfortable with the services that will be provided by ALC.”

Another key factor in the district’s decision to contract with ALC was the company’s business practices that contribute to a reduction in the transportation program’s carbon footprint.

“We are located in a region of the country where people are conscious about making decisions that are favorable and beneficial for the environment,” Bishop added. “Using a combination of fully compliant vans and sedans to transport our students with special needs, ALC is not only leveraging vehicles that are more accessible for our students, it is also helping us reduce our fuel consumption when compared to the amount of gas used by traditional yellow buses, and is helping us to reduce wear and tear that larger vehicles have on the environment.”

Washington County School District in St. George, Utah, has also renewed its contract with ALC. The company will continue to provide services for the district’s students with special needs during the 2010-11 school year.

In the state of Utah, school districts are only reimbursed for bus services when a trip has more than five students. Prior to contracting with ALC, Washington County School District found it difficult to meet the state’s reimbursement requirements when it came to transporting its growing population of students with special needs, the company said. In many cases, due to the rural landscape that makes up much of the region, the district was transporting four special-needs students or less up to 50 miles each way.

The district chose to contract with ALC to curb the costs associated with its special-needs transportation program by replacing its non-reimbursable bus routes with vans and sedans.

“In addition to helping us reduce the cost of our special-needs transportation program, we have also been quite impressed with ALC’s care in selecting and training their drivers, their use of innovative technologies such as BlackBerry devices to communicate with the driver and business practices that lower the carbon footprint for our district’s transportation program,” said Launi Schmutz, director of transportation for the district.

Through its proprietary trip optimization technology, ParaMax, ALC seeks to decrease school transportation costs by analyzing data provided by the district to “right size” each vehicle and trip.

Its Intelligent Transportation System helps clients to achieve high performance metrics, the company said.

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